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Saturday, October 29, 2011

The November Biblical Studies Carnival of the Undead - put together by biblioblogger Tom Verenna - is out now - a ghoulish collection of articles, essays and other assorted writings in biblical studies.

This month's freakish monstrosity includes a link to one of my posts (horray!)

Friday, October 28, 2011

My daughter made this print for a school project. She carved the image into the back of a Styrofoam plate, covered it with printer's ink using a roller, and then transferred the image to her paper. She also drew the calligraphic border -which reads:

God is the Light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Since I've added something new to this blog - namely the advertisements (whatever revenue they generate for me will be given to the Salvation Army in Fairmont, Minnesota.), I decided to create new header and footer pictures for the blog.

But in case you get nostalgic for the old ones, here are the previous pics that have adorned this blog.

If you are one of the few (but growing number of ) people who read this blog on a regular or semi-regular basis, you might have noticed something new in the past day or so. There are now advertisements appearing on the page.

yep.

I have succumbed to the lure of filthy lucre. I have given over to mammon's siren song. Sorta'.

I'm not entirely comfortable with them. But, what I'm hoping is that these ads will generate some small amount of money that I can, in turn, give to The Salvation Army of Fairmont, Minnesota. If this blog can help us to make our budget, I'll be pleased, and it will be worth the discomfort it causes me to have them on the blog.

The ads are here - for now - as a test. If they do well, and if they aren't overly obnoxious, I'll continue to let them stay. If not, I'll drop them.

Meanwhile...Thanks for stopping by this little corner of the internets.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

This song was made using only one sound sample. Using Ableton Live (lite) and Adobe SoundboothHang Song 1 -from The Freesound Project - was looped, twisted, and subjected to various reverberations to make something new.

If you've enjoyed it, feel free to download it, or to leave a comment below.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

hy are horror films so popular? Why do these stories of death and
dismemberment and destruction come back to us again and again and again? And why do we find them so entertaining? I’m
sure that I don’t have an answer. No one answer will be complete.

How is that we can be entertained and amused by a movie’s
depiction of someone being killed – but we (most of us) are repulsed by the
idea of watching someone actually die?
Do we derive some sort of voyeuristic thrill from watching a horror
movie?

In 1960 the British filmmaker Michael Powell released the movie Peeping Tom
to great controversy. The film revolved
around a serial killer who murders women while using a portable movie camera to
record their dying expressions of terror.
Though it was initially scorned by critics, it has since become regarded
as a complex and classic film. Do we,
like the film’s main character, derive a thrill from watching horror
movies? We would loathe to admit
it. But it might be true.

Roger Ebert, in his review of Peeping Tom, says that
"Movies make us into voyeurs. We sit in the dark, watching other people's
lives. It is the bargain the cinema strikes with us, although most films are
too well-behaved to mention it."[i]

But put aside the horror film for the moment. Voyeurism as
entertainment has all but swallowed up television programming. Every so-called “reality show” on television
is based on the premise of allowing cameras (us voyeuristic viewers) to watch
people as they are without a script. How is it that admitting that you like Survivor
is acceptable – even respectable, but mention that you like horror movies and
people look at you as if they suspected you to be mentally unstable? Is there really that much of a difference?

Yes. I’m sure there is a difference, but I’m not sure I
could define it. That’s why the question – Why are horror movies so popular? –
is difficult to answer. And that’s part of what makes the movie S&Man
(2006)so compelling and so revolting.

On the surface S&Man is a documentary about the
world of underground and fetish horror films, films with a limited and specific
audience. These are not films for my
mother (or, I’ll assume, your mother).
It is a journalistic look at the directors, and actors who make films
about simulated death, torture, and paraphilia (aberrant sexual practices). Through interviews with a variety of people
like Carol J. Clover (a professor at the University of California at Berkeley
and author of Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film),
a forensic psychologist, and horror film
director, Bill Zebub, a fairly balanced view of this underground world is
presented to the viewer.
But quietly and without fanfare, director J. T. Petty, slips something horrible
beneath the surface of this pseudo-documentary.
One of the filmmakers that he interviews – Eric Rost[ii] -
may be crossing the line between “reality-show” entertainment and voyeuristic
murder. And the deeper we look, the more
horrifying it becomes.

Is it a “snuff” film?
Or is it just a movie?

This movie, like Peeping Tom, turns us viewers into
voyeurs of a sort. And that is the
horror of this movie; that we are pulled in, that we are simultaneously
entertained and repulsed by what’s being put on in front of us. It is horrifying and is entertaining.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

I was out of town for a couple of days and missed a few
movies from my list. But I’m home again
now and back to the horror movies.

I’ve watched a lot of bad movies over the years, low-budget
movies with lousy special effects and talentless actors, movies directed by
film-makers who make Ed Wood Jr. and Colman Francis look like auteurs. Sometimes you get lucky and one of those
creature-feature B movies actually turns out to be something interesting. This is not the case with the Canadian made
for television movie Black Swarm (2007).

It begins as a horror movie should, with a plausible premise
that plays on the fears of the age. And
this fear isn’t a new one, it’s a fear that’s been exploited by story tellers
for as long as there have been scary stories: the fear of man’s works turned
against him, of science and technology (that could be used for the good and
prosperity of mankind) being turned into agents of destruction and death. And
the genetically altered weaponized wasps of Black Swarm that turn their
victims into zombie-esque drones and breeding hosts make for a particularly nasty
type of monster.

While it begins well, the movie fails as most B-movies do. Around the 45 minute mark it starts to go a
little weird, and after 1 hour it’s spiraled off into a buzzing
incomprehensibility. The characters
behave in an inexplicable manner, there are chasms in the plot – let’s not call
them “holes.” Even horror veteran Robert
Englund starring as the basement dwelling ‘mad-scientist’ can’t bring this
movie anywhere near scary, let alone social commentary.

But what if it had been different? What if the director had been able to make a
compelling story from this premise?

The story takes place in the fictional town of Blackstone,
New York – a town name that brings to mind the English jurist, William
Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England helped to codify English common law into a
just and fair system applicable to all citizens. Without law, without justice there is only chaos. The movie has plenty of chaos, and even
though one of the protagonists is a sheriff (deputy sheriff, actually) there’s
very little application of legitimate law.

Late in the film we’re told that the weaponized wasps are
the result of one of those “secret government programs” to develop biological
weapons. The only problem is that
they’re unable to distinguish friend from foe.
The wasps, once agitated will attack anyone in the area, and since they
are all but indestructible, it’s impossible (except for the film’s heroes) to
stop them. Here again is potential for
great story telling, and for great social commentary. … Something about great
power and great responsibility, perhaps?
Or …he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword?

I wish that this could have been one of those lucky finds,
one of those creature-features that rises above the rest of the snarling and
growling beasties. Black Swarm is a movie with promethean potential but…
that’s all. Potential.

Friday, October 21, 2011

"The Bible certainly teaches the importance of music..."
At least that's what we've heard.

My son and I spent a few hours tonight playing with some music. We put various samples into a MIDI keyboard and then layered on some wild effects to see what kind of tones we could create. Eventually we put together song. This is my ten year old son playing the synth, bells and the preacher's voice.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

As the stars flicker into the purpled dusky sky, the prophet
Zechariah extinguishes the flame from his lamp. He says a prayer before he
sleeps – ‘Lord of the Universe, it is true, that before You there is no night,
and the light of the world is with You. You make the whole world shine with
Your light. Keep me as I sleep.’

Zechariah sleeps as the moon climbs into the dark skies over
the city of Jerusalem.
And in his sleep he looks up into the darkness at the intersection of heaven
and earth and sees a grove of aromatic myrtle trees. The trees are rooted in
the depths of the abyss, “the extremity of the world …at the extreme limits of
life (Ollenburger, 750).” The dark seas are filled with danger and mystery.

A wind whispers in the branches of the myrtles carrying the
fragrance of Eden
into the night. The whole world is quiet, but the air is charged, tense,
expectant.

In the shadows of the myrtle trees he sees a man riding a
red horse, and behind him more horses – red, chestnut, and white – pawing at
the ground and snorting. They are powerful creatures.

Zechariah turns to the angel that is now suddenly standing
next to him and asks, ‘Sir, what are these horses doing here? What’s the
meaning of this?’

The angel-messenger answers ‘Let me show you.’

Then the rider of the red horse speaks up, ‘These are those
whom YHWH has sent to patrol the earth.’ And now the horses deliver their
report to Angel of YHWH, the rider of the red horse,’ We have patrolled the
earth, and lo, the whole earth remains at peace.’ They are Yahweh’s agents sent
to patrol the earth. They are God’s dominion over all of creation and have
unlimited, universal range (Ollenburger, 751). They are the hosts of heaven,
the angel armies of God returned from a reconnaissance mission.

Hearing their report, the Angel of YHWH cries out to YHWH,
‘Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, how long are You going to stay angry with Jerusalem? How long will
You withhold mercy from the cities of Judah on which You have inflicted
Your anger for the past seventy years?’

And from the darkness of the grove YHWH speaks words of
grace and comfort to the Angel of YHWH, who then addresses Zechariah: ‘Proclaim
this message, it is Yahweh’s message – I am jealous for Jerusalem
and Zion. And I
am extremely angry with the nations that are comfortable and at ease.

‘I’ve come back to Jerusalem,
but with compassion this time. I’ll see to it that my Temple is rebuilt. My cities will prosper
again. I will comfort Zion
again. Jerusalem
will be back in my favor again.’

Zechariah is commissioned to preach the return of YHWH to Jerusalem and his
compassion and consolation for the people. But his message isn’t just a “there,
there” type of consolation. Zechariah is to alert Israel and the world that Yahweh’s
determination is to change the world – to rearrange the present order. YHWH is
remaking, recreating the world, and restoring the world to its proper order.
Governments are going to be cut off and cast down, while Zion is going to be lifted up and exalted.

“For YHWH has chosen Zion,
He has desired it as home. ‘Here shall I rest for evermore, here shall I make
my home as I have wished.'" (Psalm 132: 13 – 14)

Through the night Zechariah receives a series of eight
visions – at one point the interpreting angel awakens him “as one is awakened
from sleep.” Using a variety of both familiar and, at times, bizarre, Zechariah
is given a vision of the world as it is, and as it will be. The visions move
from a focus on the whole world to a focus on Judah,
then Jerusalem, and then at the heart of the
visions, of the Temple
itself. The visions then move back outward again through Jerusalem,
and Judah,
to the whole world.

Zechariah sees horns that represent nations being cut off by
blacksmiths that serve the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, an un-measurable Jerusalem being measured
and surrounded by YHWH as a wall of fire. He sees Joshua the high priest
standing before a heavenly tribunal accused by the Satan. He sees a vision of
the seven-branched Menorah within the Temple
flanked by two olive trees. He sees a flying scroll that condemns thieves and
perjurers. He sees a basket that contains a woman who is wickedness, and he
watches as the basket is carried off by two women with wings like storks, to Babylon where it will be
set up and worshipped. And in the final vision he sees horses, again as the
servants of YHWH Sabaoth (the LORD of Hosts), sent out to patrol the ends of
the world.

And because Zechariah is unable to understand what he is
seeing in these visions they are interpreted for him by an interpreting Angel.
The visions are devoted to a number of related themes:

The rebuilding of the Temple
in Jerusalem.

The return of Yahweh’s presence to Zion.

The reformation of the moral and social character of the
world.

And the inclusion of all nations within the glorious future
of Zion.

The world, according to the visions of Zechariah and the
rest of Scripture, is a sanctuary in which the reign of God is visible and
unchallenged. God’s holiness is all-pervasive in the temple that is the
world.(Levenson, 86) “YHWH is in His holy Temple,
let all the earth keep silent before him."(Habakkuk 2: 20)

What Zechariah sees in his series of visions is not just the
restoration of the temple, not just the restoration of Jerusalem,
not even just the restoration of the nation of Israel
– but the restoration of the whole of the created order within the heavenly
city of Zion,
wherein all nations are gathered and restored.

In his final vision Zechariah lifts his eyes and sees four
chariots coming out between two mountains of bronze. Drawing from a variety of
ancient near eastern mythical ideas Zechariah envisions these horse drawn
chariots as coming with the dawn and the rising sun. The two mountains of
bronze are ablaze with the light of the rising sun.

“Arise, shine out, for your light has come, and the glory of
YHWH has risen on you. Look! though night still covers the earth and darkness
the peoples, on you YHWH is rising and over you his glory can be seen. The
nations will come to you light and kings to your dawning brightness."
(Isaiah 60: 1 – 3)

This solar imagery is appropriate for the final of his eight
visions. The fist image came to him in the night. And now, at the break of
dawn, he is receiving the eighth and final vision. The number eight is often
used in scripture to represent a new beginning, a new day. Eight were spared in
the flood (Genesis 7:13, 23) when God gave the earth a new start. Circumcision
was performed on the eighth day (Genesis 17: 12). Thomas saw the risen Christ on
the eighth day (John 20:26). The Eighth vision of Zechariah describes the
beginning of a new world order, a new creation.

He sees four chariots pulled by horses of varying colors
heading out in all directions. The horses burst like the sun from between the
mountains. They are vigorous and strong and impatient to be about their work.
They are about the work of a new creation. They are the winds or the spirits of
God and they are taking God’s Spirit to bring peace to the world and to the
north country in particular. The north country being the land of exile, Babylon. They are the
divine winds of (re)creation sweeping over the land (Genesis 1:2)

The final vision ends with the Spirit of God at rest. The
first vision began with the world being at rest – but the rest is different
now. Things have changed during night. Thing have changed during the course of
the evening’s visions. “The world is at peace when Zechariah first sees in the
night, and it is at peace when the visions conclude. But the word has changed. International,
internal, and cosmic order have been recreated. Sacred space has been restored.
(Ollenburger, 784)”

Within Zechariah’s visions, oppressors have been brought
down, exiles have been brought home, and Zion
has become the gathering place for all the peoples of the world as they all
come to worship God. Zion
becomes a place without walls – for no walls of stone and mortar could ever
contain the multitudes that are gathered within YHWH’s protective walls of
fire.

But was it just a dream. What happens to the visions when
Zechariah awakens in the morning? Do they disappear into fleeting and vague
memories as dreams often do – or will they become a reality?

Zechariah invites us to imagine with him the things that he
has seen. We are to envision these signs along with the prophet. When we read
what he has written about his visions we see them in our minds along with him.
But we are also called to inhabit those visions – to inhabit the world
according to what we have see – to inhabit the world according to what it will
become on YHWH Sabaoth’s initiative.

People often make the statement, “well, it’s not a perfect
world…” but that’s a cop-out. It’s an excuse, and a miserable excuse. The
author of the letter to the Hebrews makes it clear that “what you have come to
is MountZion
and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where millions of angels have
gathered for the festival, with the whole Church of first-born sons enrolled as
citizens of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and to the
spirits of the upright who have been made perfect; and to Jesus, the mediator
of a new covenant… (Hebrews 12: 22 – 24)”

We have come to MountZion. We are gathered
within those protective walls of fire. The kingdom we inhabit cannot be shaken.
To say, 'oh well, it's not a perfect world' is to awaken from Zechariah's
visions and forget what we have been shown. We need to inhabit those visions, and to make them real in the world around us. We need to live into those visions.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Undead or Alive (2007) is a genre blending RomZomCom along the lines of Shaun
of the Dead – a romantic zombie comedy for those who liked BrokebackMountain. I didn’t expect very much from this movie
when I started it (I mean, come on…Chris Kattan is in it!), but I was
pleasantly surprised and I laughed out loud several times.

All the western clichés are present – from the frontier
women in long cotton skirts baking pies in wood burning stoves, to the corrupt
and mustachioed sheriff, the saloon girls, horses, and six-guns. These common
western tropes are combined with recognizable zombie movie chestnuts like the
shambling rotting corpse eating the brains of his wife and daughter. It’s
not, by any means, a great movie, but it does deliver all that it
promises: Cowboys and Zombies and not a
few laughs.

But, I should say, my enjoyment of this lighthearted movie
was very qualified.

Zombie movies can generally be divided into two kinds based
on their explanation for the origin of the zombies. One says that the dead are reanimated by some
sort of bacteria or virus, that is to say, a scientific and natural explanation
(however un-scientific it might be). The
other kind of zombie movie suggests that Zombies are the result of a
supernatural curse. Undead or Alive
is one of the latter.

The movie’s prologue tells us that the legendary warrior and
medicine-man Geronimo, “renowned for bravery in the face of overwhelming
odds…was credited with supernatural powers.”
After many years of guerrilla war against the U.S. Army, Geronimo was
finally cornered and his final act was to make “the secret medicine known as
the White Man’s Curse.” This curse is what causes the white-men to become
zombies.

And this is where part of me started to object.

If the curse of the film were cast by any unidentified Apache warrior /
medicine man, I could have watched the movie without struggling to maintain my
suspension of disbelief. But crediting
it to the famous and historically important Geronimo causes several problems.

Geronimo was indeed renowned for his raids against Mexican provinces and later
against US territories. After a lengthy
pursuit, he finally surrendered to US forces in 1886. He was taken as a
prisoner of war and lived for many years and became something of a celebrity.
He also became a Christian and urged his people

“..to study that religion, because it seems to me the best
religion in enabling one to live right.” [i]

He didn’t die until 1909 - from complications from pneumonia. So the history and characterization of
Geronimo is far from accurate. And he’s
hardly a character in the movie anyway. We
see him only briefly during the prologue and in a few very short flashes as the
curse is passed from victim to victim, so I’m not sure why the filmmakers
thought it necessary to attach Geronimo’s name.

But then again, having all but cleansed the old west of authentic “Indian”
characters in real-life, why should we expect our films to portray them
accurately. Why bother when we can pit
cowboys verses zombies or cowboys verses aliens?

"I was living peacefully with my family, having
plenty to eat, sleeping well, taking care of my people, and perfectly
contented. I don’t know where those bad stories first came from. There we were
doing well and my people well. I was behaving well. I hadn’t killed a horse or
man, American or Indian. I don’t know what was the matter with the people in
charge of us. They knew this to be so, and yet they said I was a bad man and
worst man there; but what had I done? I was living peacefully there with my
family under the shade of the trees, doing just what General Crook had told me
I must do and trying to follow his advice. I want to know now who it was
ordered me to be arrested. I was praying to the light and to the darkness, to
God and to the sun, to let me live quietly there with my family. I don’t know
what the reason was that people speak badly of me. Very often there are stories
put in the newspapers that I am to be hanged. I don’t want that anymore. When a
man tries to do right, such stories ought not be put in the newspapers. There
are very few of my men left now. They have done some bad things but I want them
all rubbed out now and let us never speak of them again. There are very few of
us left." - Goyathlay (Geronimo)[ii]

Saturday, October 15, 2011

What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to
do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede
every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes
me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea
for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still
recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men,
but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the
most important thing.

Creepshow (1982) is more than just another horror
movie.When director George Romero and writer
Stephen King came together to produce this now classic movie, they made
something more profound than most creature-features.It is,
of course, a horror movie, (more accurately, an anthology of five short films
tied together with the comic book motif). How could it be otherwise with Romero
and King at the wheel?And fans of the
horror genre will appreciate the blood and gore and zombies and other various
horror tropes.But the second of the
collected stories, The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, filmed with a
blend of comedy and horror, is something more than the sum of its horror cliché
parts.The Lonesome Death of Jordy
Verrill is almost philosophical.

Based on a previously published short story by Stephen King[i], The
Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill tells the tale of a dimwitted yokel living
alone on his farm in rural Main. When he discovers
a meteorite that has crashed on his property he sees this as his opportunity to
become rich by selling the space rock to the “department of meteors” at the local
community college.He dreams of
receiving the extravagant sum of Two Hundred Dollars for his extraordinary
find.

But his dreams of wealth are dashed when the meteorite
breaks in half and spills out a phosphorescent blue goo over the ground and
over Jordy’s hands.The “department of
meteors” wouldn’t be interested in a broken space rock.He chides himself for being a
“lunk-head.”

“Still,” he says in spite of his disappointment, “I got to
try.” He struggles on with his limited abilities and his limited imagination,
trying to find that one thing me must do - the one true thing which will give
his life meaning and purpose.

This is the existentialist’s quest: to find something that will give meaning to
this life.And Jordy Verrill is the
quintessential existential man – disoriented and confused in the face of a
meaningless and absurd world.

And it is absurd.The
meteorite that Jordy Verrill discovered is contaminated with some sort of
extraterrestrial life that begins immediately to grow everywhere.Even on Jordy himself (“No!” he screams in an
off-camera scene, “Not there!)This
green growth spreads across his body, his house, and his farm.By morning everything is covered and Jordy
has become a monstrous plant-man.As he
gropes for a shotgun to put an end to his misery he pleads “Please God, let my
luck be in just this once, please God, just this once…”

Jordy’s television and radio play in the background of
several scenes. If you give careful attention you can see that even in these
background sounds and images, the horror and absurdity existential life is
described.

A wrestling match between Bob Backlund and Samoan No. 1 (is
anything in life more absurd than professional wrestling?)

A Star is Born (1937)

…everyone in this world who has ever dreamed about better
things has been laughed at, don't you know that? But there's a difference
between dreaming and doing. The dreamers just sit around and moon about how
wonderful it would be if only things were different.

Christian homily Look up. Lift up your head. You will succeed.Be confident of this one thing: that God who
has begun a good thing in you will complete it The
hope in this inspirational message, delivered by a smiling priest, is cut by
the ironic voice-over announcement that follows. “Pre-recorded.”It wasn’t a message for Jordy.It was just a senseless voice carried through the
airwaves.

Farm and Weather Report

And in today’s weather…well not much for the outdoor
types but you farmers are going to love this. The current 30 day forecast
released by the U.S.
Meteorological station in Portland
calls for moderating temperatures and lots of rain.CastleCounty is going to turn
green so fast in the next month that it’s going to be almost miraculous.

And that’s the lonesome death of Jordy Verrill, absurd and
meaningless. He lived and died alone in a strange and incomprehensible
universe. The world itself is meaningless and amoral (not immoral. They are
different).The universe doesn’t care
one way or another about Jordy Verrill.The meteorite that crashed on his farm was neither a gift nor a curse.
It was just absurd.

[i]Weeds by Stephen King – which in turn
is loosely based on the story The Color out of Space by H.P.
Lovecraft.The title is based on the
song The Lonesome Death of Hattie Caroll by Bob Dylan.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Yun-ju is a part time college lecturer. This isn’t much. According to a poll that he and his friends
read,, this puts him somewhere around 50th on the list of “best husbands.” He wants to become a professor at the university but he has no
connection, no “in” with the dean, not unless he wants to put up $10,000 as a
bribe. Furthering his angst, his pregnant and demanding wife berates him constantly and treats him like a little child. But she’s the one that holds a
steady job and supports their burgeoning family and she reminds him of this, over and over again.

All of this and he can’t sleep at night because of a yapping
dog that barks all night. And dogs aren’t even allowed in apartment
building!

What else can Yun-ju do, except kill the mongrel?

Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) listed on Netflix as a
horror film isn’t exactly a –horror- film.
It is more of dark and morbid comedy.
And yes, it is very dark and it is very funny. This film from South Korea – my second Korean“horror” filmthis month – is funny in a dry, deadpan sort of way. Many of the jokes are visual, created by
slight camera movement and by the odd juxtaposition of images.

In his frustration and anger at the life-shaping forces beyond his control, Yun-ju kills the obnoxious dog that has been keeping his awake.
But he soon discovers that he's killed the wrong one. There’s another stupid yappy dog in the apartment building! It’s not long before dogs begin disappearing
from the complex.

And for the building’s janitor who finds their
bodies, this is a boon because he enjoys a nice bowl of Boshnitang –
that is, Dog Soup. It’s a Korean dish that has it’s origins in antiquity –
though it has been ostensibly banned by the government since 1986. Despite this, it is still available at many
restaurants in South Korea. The literal translation of the name Boshintang
is “invigorating soup” and is eaten by many to increase their virility.

Perhaps if Yun-ju had eaten the dogs he killed, he might not have been in such
a desperate situation. But he’s cowardly
and weak. And he’s ashamed. He’s ashamed that he isn’t more at work,
ashamed that his job is a nowhere-nothing kind of job; and he’s ashamed that
has to depend upon his wife’s income for his family. For a young man in a culture still rooted in
Confucian values this is an intolerable situation. He should be the man. He should be respected by his peers, and,
especially, by his wife.

Hyeon-nam is equally disconnected in her work. She works as a bookkeeper at the same apartment
building but she’s bored and dissatisfied. It’s not until she notices the
recent disappearance of dogs from the apartment building that she is really
motivated. She dreams of becoming a
hero, of doing something important and being recognized and applauded by people. And
so she begins to track down the person responsible for the missing dogs.

The movie has some clever nods to horror and kung-fu movie clichés and some
really great camera work. The sound
track is an amazing blend of alternating jazz and Asian percussion tracks. The script is well written and the acting is
solid. And it asks great questions –
What does it mean to be successful? What
does it mean to be man? How does one
deal with frustrated ambitions? How can
you get rid of that noisy neighbor’s dog?

Strangely enough, that same year the movie How to Kill
Your Neighbor’s Dog was released in the U.S. Though the American film is
less about social commentary and more about a mid-life crisis, it has similar
premise – a once successful playwright struggles to deal with a decade long
streak of bombs and a wife who is desperate for children – and a noisy
bothersome dog in the neighbor’s yard.
The two films have a similar set up, but wind up in very different
places at their conclusions.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

You remember that scene in Hamlet, right? After having seen a ghostly figure stalking
about the castle parapets Hamlet tells Horatio that:

“there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”[i]

Horatio, like his good friend Hamlet was a student at the University of Wittenberg, a noble bastion of Protestant
humanism. They would have been students
of a classical education, studying ethics, logic, natural science, and of
course philosophy and theology. This
sort of rational, logical, scientific study left little time for superstitions
and ghost stories.

I’ve had no personal experience with a ghost, much to my
continued disappointment. I have never
heard the shriek of a banshee, been thrown across the room by a poltergeist, witnessed
an apparition from the etheric plane, or found ectoplasmic residue from a
spiritual encounter. But I’ve always
believed in ghost stories, or at least I’ve wanted to believe in them. Like
agent Mulder and his UFO’s, I’ve wanted to believe in the strange and
inexplicable all my life.

The world is a strange place but most of the time it makes
sense, most of the time the world behaves in an orderly and predicable
manner. Scientists would have a
difficult time if their experiments produced different results every time
without a rational explanation. We live, as we do today, with electricity and
internal combustion engines and chemical pharmaceuticals and etc… because the
world behaves in a rational and orderly and predictable way. Usually…

But we’ve all heard those stories. A friend of a friend
heard a voice speaking to him in that empty house or so-and-so’s great
grandmother got off the Titanic at the last moment because she felt a presence
warning her not to go. We’ve heard
stories about haunted houses and strange happenings and we wonder. Maybe you’re like me and you’ve wanted to
believe that they might be true. Maybe
you hoped, as I did, that some of those stories might be true.

But at some point people tried to tell me, for my own good –
of course, that ghosts and vampires and other assorted supernatural lore are
not appropriate material for a Christian young man to study. Ghosts, I was told, were nothing more than
demonic spirits masquerading as departed spirits in order to lure people into
the occult.[ii] There was no room for a wondrous strange
world. And there was no room in my
instructors’ philosophy for ghosts.[iii]

And, for a time, I believed them. I tried to put away those childish things, but
I began to wonder. Stories and legends
about wraiths and ghosts are numerous and varied but it seemed to me that most of the stories
about ghosts involved departed spirits lingering in this physical world for one
of two things (and sometimes both). Either
spooks and haints haunted a place seeking justice for a wrong committed upon
them while they were alive or they haunted a place were a great and terrible
tragedy occurred. And if ghosts
are nothing more than demons trying to lure us into a diabolical snare – why do
they so often seem to be trying to find justice in this world – if not in the
next?

But, as I said, I’ve never had a personal encounter with a
ghost, demonic or otherwise. To this
point it’s all been stories from a friend of a friend of a friend or something
I’ve read,

It’s also my first Korean horror film. And as such there was
a lot in the film that was difficult for me to understand. Filmmakers (and storytellers in general) make
certain assumptions about what their audience knows or doesn’t know. If I tell you a story about my family loading
up the station-wagon for a summer vacation visit to my great-grand parent’s
home in Kansas I probably don’t have to explain to you the idea of summer
vacations, Kansas, or station-wagons (unless you’re under twenty years old and
you’ve only ever known the station-wagon’s marginally cooler cousin, the
mini-van…). These are things that we
understand together. But if someone in
my audience was unfamiliar with these things, the story would be more difficult
for them to understand. It wouldn’t be
impossible; visiting family and being cooped up with others for long and
difficult travel are probably universal enough that anyone anywhere can
understand them even with cultural differences but it might be difficult.

And that’s how watching Arang was for me.

It probably would have helped if I’d have known the legend
of Arang before watching the movie. The
Legend of Arang is a fairly well known ghost story – at least in Korea – but I
had to look it up. Thank God for the
internets…

It is the story of Arang, the daughter of a city
magistrate. A servant in her father’s
house conspired with her wicked nanny to seize and rape Arang. But Arang
resisted and the servant stabbed her death and hid the body. Her father, thinking that she had either
eloped with a stranger or that she had been abducted, resigned his position in
shame and spent the rest of his life trying to find her. Newly appointed magistrates were visited by
the ghost of Arang, who pleaded with them to find her murderer. But the visit was so frightening that they
all died from fear. Soon no one was
willing to take the position. But at
last a bold and good man was appointed to the post and he promised Arang’s
ghost that he would seek out justice for her. He found the wicked servant,
arrested him and had him executed. And
after that Arang’s spirit ceased to haunt the town.

Maruyam Okyo's paintingThe Ghost of Oyuki

It’s a pretty typical ghost story, and one that we’ve
probably heard before with a different name and with different details. So it’s not as if the story was completely
foreign to me.

But it’s the details that
differ. If you’ve seen the recent
American versions of Japanese[v]
horror films like The Ring (2002) (based on Ringu) or The Grudge
(2004) (based on Ju-On) you’ve seen a pretty typical example of a
Japanese ghost – the pale skin, white robe, and the long disheveled dark
hair. These are things that the Korean
audience of Arang would notice immediately.

But even with the cultural gap,
the story plays well. It is one part
ghost story and one part detective thriller.
After a series of bizarre deaths two police detectives, So-young – a
young but experienced woman with her own intense reasons for becoming a police
officer – and Hyung-gi, her new and naïve partner – realize that in order to
solve the mystery they’ll have to investigate a 10 year old crime.

To say more would be to give away the story and I don’t want to do that. I encourage you to watch the movie and to
experience it for yourself.

The bible really says very little about ghosts.
To insist with dogmatic certitude that they are nothing more than
demonic lures goes beyond what the bible actually says and leaves us in world
without the potential, at least, for the wondrous and strange things of this
queer universe.

[ii] Citing 1 Timothy 4:1 " [they] come to
deceive people and draw them away from God and into bondage."

[iii] They wouldn’t have agreed Hamlet or with the
British geneticist / evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane who said, “...it is
my suspicion that not only is the universe queerer than we suppose, it is queerer
than we can suppose.”

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

I’ve made another change in my Monster Movies in October schedule. I swapped out The Bloodstained Shadow for the 2009 Norwegian
film Dead Snow (Død Snø) about Nazi Zombies. Dead Snow is a movie that I wanted to
like. Seriously. Nazi Zombies!

It seemed like a great concept. And I really wanted to like this movie, but the
movie knows that it is cliché and is never able to rise above the level of cliché.

How many movies start with a group of friends on a trip
to a cabin?

There are a few clever moments in Dead Snow but never
gets around to adding anything new to the zombie genre. It just quotes all the old zombie favorites
but with amplified blood and gore. But the
great zombie movies aren’t really about the zombies. The great zombie movies are about the human
characters. Dead Snow is just
about the zombies… the zombies and lots of gore.

And it could have been so much more. Given that Zombies (usually) are mindless
flesh eating creatures a film about Nazi zombies could have explored the nature
of evil and the choices that humans make. It could have been about guilt and shame. It could have been, but it wasn't. And I was disappointed. I wanted something more than a lot of blood.

Of course Nazi Zombies aren't really new. There was the 1977 movie Shock Waves that featured Nazi zombies and Peter Cushing.

Yes, the tarantula is a terrible insect [sic]. It has only one fatal enemy, a hymenoptera, a
so-called wasp with salmon colored wings.
The wasp is always the first to attack.
Once the wasp has attacked it becomes a battle to the end. The wasp is always the winner, you see. The tarantula has no escape. To finish the battle, finally, she’ll sting
the tarantula. The tarantula’s stung and
paralyzed by the wasp. The wasp will then disembowel it and put her larva
there, you understand? The tarantula
remains alive while the larva is nourished by its flesh. Thus the victim can do nothing to defend
itself though aware of being disemboweled and eaten alive.

But (and there’s always a but, right?) they can’t all be
good, I suppose.

The Italian giallofilm Black Belly of the
Tarantula (1971) is a bit of a clunker.
There horror elements are there, certainly; the premise is particularly
gruesome. A mysterious killer is
attacking women involved in a blackmail conspiracy. He seizes his victims by paralyzing them with
an acupuncture needle laced with poison and then slices open their
bellies. But Black Belly of the
Tarantula never quite fulfills its potential. It moves too slowly.

The soundtrack by Ennio Morricone is interesting, though. It switches back and forth between an easy
listening jazz and modern and disorienting horror cues. It's not as memorable as his music for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but it's pretty good.

I was bored, overall, by this movie but it did lead me to something really
horrifying.

The director of Don’t Torture a Duckling, Lucio
Fulci, is known to horror aficionados as the ‘Godfather of Gore.’Many of his films (like Zombie 2 and The Beyond) feature gore filled
murders and flesh eating creatures.His
films are not for the squeamish.

Don’t Torture a Duckling (Non si sevizia un
paperino) marks the beginning of Fulci’s use of gore in his movies but it’s
very restrained.Well... as restrained as
a scene can be when it features a human being crashing head first down a stony
hillside, having its flesh ripped away by jagged rocks as it falls. Or when the
scene features the mercilessly cruel beating of woman by angry mob using clubs
and chains.

But don’t let that pull you away from this film. It is a
very sensitive film.Fulci has said in
several interviews that this was his most personal and his favorite of all his
films.It is a complex criticism of
social values – traditional versus modernity, the nature of innocence, fate and
free will.It was the title that drew me
to this film, but I’m still not certain I completely understand its
relevance.Don’t Torture a Duckling
is a film about injustice and society’s cruelty to children.

Children are being murdered in the small Italian village of Accendura. Though this is shocking, it
isn’t a new thing.Murdered children
have a long history in horror films – going back as far as 1931 to Fritz Lang’s
film M and James Whales Frankenstein.Accendura is an
isolated community in the mountains, only recently dragged kicking and
screaming into the modern world by a newly constructed highway.The villagers are superstitious and fearful
and suspicious of outsiders. And when the police are unable to discover the
killer, a mob mentality takes over the townspeople.Everyone becomes a suspect and suspects are
guilty and they must be dealt with – violently.It’s mob rule. It’s vigilante justice.And it is ugly.

Vigilante justice is always ugly (despite our fascination
with the Lone Ranger and Batman…).Genesis 34 tells another story of ‘frontier justice.’And it’s just as violent and gory and ugly as any film
by Lucio Fulci.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Harold Camping still insists - despite his stroke and despite his many failed predictions - that the rapture will occur this year. It didn't happen like he thought it would back in May but he's confident that it will most definitely happen on October 21, 2011. But it will be so quiet and such a non-event that we probably won't even notice that it has happened.

I don't believe in his particular brand of eschatology - I think he's a bit of a loon, actually. But just in case, I've prepared this little pastiche of end-times material. It's a re-post, yes... but if Harold Camping can continue to recycle his material then so can I.

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